Sunday, December 15, 2013

Next Generation Science Standards VS Oklahoma Academic Standards – Yet Another Lesson In Deception From The State Department of Education

A Comparison SO Easy - Even a Caveman Can Do it!

Here are the Kindergarten Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science and the Next Generation Science Standards. Aside from maybe a few punctuation marks, can you really determine any differences?

Oklahoma Academic Standards - Science

Next Generation Science Standards

ROPE has evaluated the Next Generation
Science Standards[i]
(NGSS) and the Oklahoma
Academic Standards[ii]
(OAS).As you can see from the screen
shots above – we found them to be virtually identical – the same components –
the same structure – the same exact verbiage in most of them in fact. (I have posted screen shots from 6th and 9th grade as well at the bottom, so you can get the idea.)

There have been deletions from the NGSS to the OAS.For example a unit on Global Warming found in
the middle school and high school standards under ESS3.D: Global Climate Change
and a section on Darwinian Evolution found in the NGSS high school standards
under LS4.C: Adaptation were removed. I
did not review each section of either set of standards, however, because after
I identified word-for-word language common to both sets of standards, there was
truly no necessity to do so.At that
point it seemed completely logical and realistic to accept the sameness of the
standards and provide previous reviews of the NGSS as means for evaluation.

Many reviewers have complained bitterly about the NGSS.You can find very excellent evaluations here:

Fordham issued a complete technical
analysis which detailed numerous problems including that the NGSS, “never
explicitly requires some content in early grades that is then assumed in
subsequent standards.”They give the
standards a C.(in the interest of full
disclosure; Fordham gave Oklahoma’s PASS in science an F).

“The science standards, like those
for math and English, are not based on empirical evidence of efficacy nor are
they tested in any environment. They are fresh out of the box and will be
field-tested statewide in any state that signs on.”

“The standards frequently present
science as “an enterprise promoted by consensus.” On the contrary, consensus is
not a scientific but a political value, as should be clear to anyone familiar
with the history of science, which chronicles scores or even hundreds of great
reversals of once reigning paradigms—as documented, e.g., in Thomas Kuhn’s The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Science does not seek to attain
truth by popular—or expert—vote, but by logical reasoning from premises
provided by observations of the surrounding world.”

“The "Next Generation Science
Standards" have set out to backwards engineer the whole science curriculum
into a coherent, self-validating tool. The goal all along was an instrument to
market both teaching and assessment products to a captive education system, not
to provide a framework for good teaching of the sciences.”

I personally like the way the NGSS (aka OAS) standards are organized.In my opinion, the specific standards were
easier to identify for each grade level than the PASS under which I taught.

Unfortunately, I most dislike the FACT that our Oklahoma
State Department of Education (OSDE) would give the good citizens of Oklahoma whose
trust and tax dollars they enjoy, a set of standards based entirely on the NGSS
and then call them Oklahoman.This
smacks of such deception it is frankly hard to conceive.If Oklahoma had intended to use a modified
version of the NGSS, they had but to say so.Instead, Oklahomans have been treated to various versions of how the
NGSS were not “Oklahoma” standards and that the OSDE was writing THEIR OWN
OKLAHOMA STANDARDS in order to create a set of standards more in line with “Oklahoma
values”.

1.Repeal the Common Core from state law (which our
governor and state superintendent have sworn not to do) and allow districts to
use whatever standards work for them – or allow the state to re-write our own
standards our own way

2.Accept all national standards provided by the
various non-profit and federal agencies as declared by state law (the NGSS were
created by Achieve and the National Research Council), keep their names and turn
a deaf ear to the outcry from citizens

3.Accept all national standards as declared by
state law and re-name them in order to prevent citizen complaint

The Oklahoma State Department of Education has apparently
decided upon #3.

How do we explain the large number of educators and others
we are told wrote, developed and reviewed these standards?I have no intention of disrespecting any of
the individuals listed.I feel certain
they had only the very best intent in this project.Yet one only has to look at the pictures and
read the standards to wonder exactly where any Oklahoman had a hand in these.

"Way too much of what passes
for dialogue and scholarship around teachers' professional work has been
managed, packaged and sold as authentic. It's not teacher leadership or
advocacy. It's slick marketing, using the friendly faces of teachers."

“I was serving a term as a
volunteer on my state's Math and Science Advisory Council three years ago. I'm
only describing my personal experiences, and can't speak for the rest of the
committee, but some of those experiences were really frustrating for me. For
instance, representatives of the DOE came to our meetings and asked us to
"integrate" the inquiry strand of our state science standards into
the testable bullets. We wrote a beautiful report on the role of inquiry, and
the interaction of science and mathematics. The DOE then edited our report
without our input, "correcting" our references to laboratory work so
that virtual simulations could be substituted.”

Another example comes from a
paper[xi] I
read recently upon which I wrote
a blog[xii].It describes well the art of the Delphi technique[xiii]
– a way in which to achieve consensus in a group.We have all been “Delphi’d” at one point I
feel sure – it’s become one of the most popular techniques for government
organizations to advance difficult and even unconstitutional projects because
it simultaneously gives participants the idea they were included in important
decisions while allowing leadership to maintain all control over the process.

Follow the links provided, do your own research and then
contact the State Department of Education and tell them we will NOT accept
these science standards.Our current
PASS were actually devised in Oklahoma by Oklahomans – let’s work to revise
those, not copy a square reinvention of the wheel.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU TAKE THE TIME TO COMMENT ON THESE STANDARDS IN WHATEVER WAY YOU CHOOSE. Here is the information on making public comment on the standards:

The draft of the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science is
available. Educators and the public are invited to submit written
comments regarding the proposed draft. The public comment period is from
Dec. 13, 2013, to Jan. 17, 2014. All comments must be received by 4
p.m. on Jan. 17, 2014. The standard 30-day public comment period has
been extended by one week to provide ample time for educators and the
public to provide feedback.

Submit Comments

E-mail okscienceeducation@sde.ok.gov
or send written submissions to the Oklahoma State Department of
Education at 2500 N. Lincoln Blvd., Oklahoma City, OK 73105-4599.

If you've thought about home educating your children but have not yet attempted the task, why?

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